For the people families ask first

It suits

• A person living with dementia who still uses the phone and calls the same family member again and again.
• One family caregiver, a daughter at work or a spouse at home, who has the standing to consent and wants to keep answering, only not every time.
• Any phone on her side: mobile, landline, big-button phone, a tablet that makes calls. Nothing is installed.
• Families who speak English at home. The calls are in English only.

It does not suit

• A person in crisis, or living alone with unmanaged risk, or for whom a phone call is the only safety check. It is not an emergency service.
• A family that cannot agree on consent, or a caregiver who is not at peace with what she is told on the call. Ethics & consent sets that out plainly.
• A household that needs reminders or check-in calls. It never phones her; it only answers.
• More than one loved one on a single account, for now.

Mild

She sounds worried or low. The voice slows, stays with the feeling, and does not steer her back to facts or tell her she has already asked.

Moderate

She is upset, or a fear keeps returning. The voice is designed to respond gently as the conversation continues.

Crisis

She says she is hurt, in danger, or wants to harm herself. The call continues, the voice stays calm, and alerts follow the settings chosen by the caregiver.

For each level the caregiver chooses no alert, a text, or a phone call to their own number. The service does not call 911 and does not contact anyone but the caregiver. It never invents a memory, never promises to visit or to call back, winds down warmly at about five minutes and ends by ten. Afterwards the caregiver can read every call: time, length, a one-line summary, a mood note, the full transcript.

It is not a medical device and is not offered as treatment.

Who consents

The family member submits consent before calls begin and can withdraw it at any time. Include the loved one wherever possible and check the authority of anyone making decisions on their behalf.

What is recorded

The caregiver records their voice during setup. Calls are also recorded, with audio kept in ElevenLabs. The caregiver can read written transcripts.

What she is told

On the call she hears her daughter's or her husband's voice and is not told it is a recording. If she asks whether it is really them, it never argues and never insists.

Who is in control

The caregiver sets the answering hours in her time zone; outside them her call rings the caregiver's own phone. The caregiver can change the hours, change the recording, or cancel at any time.

Where it lives

Call audio is kept in ElevenLabs. Transcripts and summaries are available for the caregiver to read. Read about storage, retention and deletion on Privacy and your voice.

The literature on familiar voices and simulated presence in dementia care is small and its findings are mixed. A few small studies report less agitation with a recorded familiar voice; others find no difference; none looked at a service that answers the phone. We make no outcome claims. What we can say is what happens on every call, which the caregiver can read afterwards, and what the wider local numbers look like.

26 hrs

The average week of unpaid care given by a dementia caregiver in Canada (Canadian Institute for Health Information).

45%

The share of dementia caregivers who show clinical symptoms of distress (Canadian Institute for Health Information).

771,939

People in Canada estimated to be living with dementia on 1 January 2025. Alzheimer Society of Canada.